Can someone help me find Emily / Emma Burlington?

[James18]

I can't find anything, even with having the only search criteria as father's surname Burlington and mother's Brown. I've tried some other things,  but no luck.

What's particularly frustrating about this is that I doubt I'll be able to find her death certificate either, as it looks like she married a man named Arthur Smith and (probably) died in England... so I'm looking for an Emma or Emily Smith who died at any time after 1958, which is very much a needle-in-a-haystack situation. (I know it was after 1958 because she attended her father's funeral).

I've searched ScotlandsPeople for deaths for a Milne or Smith with other names Milne and/or Burlington, mother's maiden name Brown. Nothing.

[aghadowey]

The Irish civil registration index on Family Search for that period does not include mother's maiden name and if surname isn't indexed as Burlington (or something similar) then you will not find it. try searching for Emily/Emma births 1890-1901 and then select location.

[James18]

I've found the following on SP, which would appear to be Emma's daughter with her second husband:

(birth)

1942   SMITH   LILIAN MCFARLAN   F   COLLEGE   GLASGOW CITY/LANARK   644/07 0388

(marriage)

1962   MARSHALL   ROBERT   SMITH   LILIAN MCFARLAN   BRIDGETON   GLASGOW CITY/LANARK   644/02 0015

(death)

2003   SMITH   LILIAN MCFARLAN   BURLINGTON   MARSHALL MILNE   F   61   KIRKINTILLOCH AND LENNOXTOWN   /DUMBARTON   508/00 0333

This is another piece of the puzzle. I wonder if I can somehow get in touch with a relative of Lilian's? It's interesting that she has Milne listed as a previous name, as this was her mother's first husband. Hmm.

[James18]

I wonder if it possibly her:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FBJD-C2F

[gaffy]

I wonder if it possibly her:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FBJD-C2F

There was an Ena Elizabeth Burlington baptised early 1899 in Dublin for parents William Charles and Marie Louise Burlington, she was born on 12 November 1898, so maybe not.

[James18]

I wonder, now that many Irish records are now online, if we could finally solve this mystery. A few preliminary searches have turned up nothing, but I won't give up that easily. 

[James18]

I've had no luck with this, either using the new Irish records or the revamped ScotlandsPeople.

It has been suggested to me that Emily/Emma may have been adopted, which is especially likely when you consider that her parents had no other children together - very rare for the time, given the lack of reliable contraception - and so may well have been unable to have any.

However, would such an adoption have likely been informal? A case of taking in a foundling, perhaps?

Would there be any kind of paper trail, and if so, where would I start looking?

[Wexflyer]

However, would such an adoption have likely been informal? A case of taking in a foundling, perhaps?

Would there be any kind of paper trail, and if so, where would I start looking?

Adoption is certainly a possibility. I spent 20 years trying to locate the birth of one relative born ca 1879. Never could find anything in either civil or parish records. A few years ago I discovered from a will that she was adopted. There was no paperwork or formal process for adoptions before relatively recent times (1920s/30s), so basically, almost no way to know, unless you turn up something like the reference in the will that solved my particular mystery (sort of).

[hallmark]

A female Burlington......